Jayson Blair's Increasingly Unlikely Career Path
Fake reporter Jayson Blair! Did you know he was once a professional Amazon bookseller? It's true! And what is he doing these days? A reasonable guess would be, "Something involving drugs and shattered lives," and that would be totally correct.
Jayson Blair is now a certified "life coach." Which one could argue is just as fake a career as his time in journalism was. Or maybe not! "Life coach" of the Blair variety sounds like it has elements of "substance abuse counselor" and "shrink," both of which are real careers—but when they roll up into "life coach," we start to doubt the expertise at work. Then we remember that this is Life Coach Jayson Blair. He tells the AP:
"People say, 'Wait a minute. You're a life coach?' That makes no sense,'" says Blair, the ex-journalist best known for foisting plagiarism and fabrications into the pages of The New York Times. "Then they think about my life experiences and what I've been through and they say 'Wait a minute. It does make sense.'"
We were with him through the first part there, but when he got to the "It does make sense" part, we lost him. But we should not judge! He's been doing this for two years, and he now works for "one of the most respected mental health practices in northern Virginia." (Strangely, his long bio says nothing of his years at the New York Times). Oftentimes the most fucked up people do make the wisest counselors once they get cleaned up. Jayson Blair could certainly fall in that category. [Ever been life coached by him? Email us.]
Here's a little-known fact about Jayson Blair's post-NYT-meltdown career: After he wrote a (not well-reviewed) book, he was a bookseller! On Amazon! Jayson ran Azure Press Books, selling stuff from home. He was just another guy up in the Amazon Seller forums, discussing postal rates. He apparently let his bookselling domain name expire in September of 2007, just as his life coaching practice was really taking off.
So, Jayson Blair's career: The world's most famous sham journalist, author of a maybe-not-so-well-thought-out book, Amazon bookseller, and now life coach. We're not mad at ya, Jayson. Redemption is possible for anyone.
But not in journalism.
[Pic: Getty]